1. Field of the Invention.
This invention has relation to the installation of handrailings, also called safety handrailings, and hardware to install such railings on vertical walls, and to methods for installing such railings.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Small railings consisting of rounded wooden dowels of size such that adults can wrap their hands substantially entirely around them are typically constructed to have one flattened side. They are usually installed using brackets which include a vertically positioned plate screwed into the wall, a shank extending outwardly from the plate to position in contact with the flattened bottom side of the railing, and screws extending vertically up through the shank into the bottom flattened portion of the railing. Such railings can be quite effectively held in position with this kind of hardware because the railing is of small diameter and the support bracket is short so that sufficient leverage is not developed under the weight of the average adult using the rail for support to cause the vertical wall plate to be ripped from the wall. Also, no appreciable torque is exerted on the railing itself because it is supported from below.
Such railings will not qualify as "safety railings" for use in public buildings such as shopping centers, governmental buildings, ramps at airline terminals, convention centers and the like. Such safety railings can be fashioned from wooden 2.times.6's, from plastic or metal of the same approximate size or larger.
In accordance with the prior art such railings have been installed using hardware brackets similar to that described for use with smaller substantially circular railings by fastening the bracket onto the vertical wall, with a shank extending outwardly from this vertical bracket and up to position underneath the 2.times.6 safety railing, another but horizontal bracket integrally attached to the shank then being screwed into the bottom 2" surface of the safety railing.
This structure has the distinct disadvantage that the leverage of people supporting themselves on the hand grip at the top of the rail causes the rail to "wobble" thus giving an insecure feeling to the user of the rail even if the rail does not actually break loose from its mounting. In order to cure this defect, an extra pipe of dimension to fit from the inside, wall facing vertical side surface of the rail to the wall is used, and then a lag bolt hole is drilled clear through a bottom portion of the safety rail in alignment with the pipe, and a lag bolt is extended through the safety rail, through the pipe, and then is screwed into the wall. This renders the safety rail much more rigid, but at the expense of having to provide the extra pipe, to drill and countersink a lag bolt hole through the safety rail, and to provide a plug to cover the end of the head of the lag bolt.
Another method of installation of safety rails is to use a large diameter wooden dowel with a hole down the middle and to position that dowel between the lower portion of the safety rail and the support wall with a countersunk lag bolt hole extending clear through the safety rail in alignment with the wooden dowel, and with a lag bolt extending through the rail, through the wooden dowel, and being screwed into the vertical support wall. This structure and the method needed to install this structure is also expensive. The method is particularly labor intensive, because of the necessity to coordinate the positioning of the countersunk lag bolt openings through the railing with the precise location of the areas on the wall where the lag bolt can find good support. This usually results in the necessity to drill the lag bolt holes in the railing on the job site.
In some instances, the wooden dowel described above has been replaced with a metal spool in order to give appreciable lateral support of the hardware with respect to the vertical wall face and of the safety rail with respect to the spool. This structure is also expensive and labor intensive to install as was the structure using the wooden dowel.
Another method, a custom method, of installing safety rails is to provide a notch on the vertical surface of the safety rail facing the support wall, to nail, screw, bolt or otherwise fasten a 2.times.4 directly to the support wall at the desired angle the safety rail is to eventually take, but several inches below the desired top of the safety rail. Once the 2.times.4 is installed, the safety rail is positioned so that its notch is flat up against the 2.times.4 and the top of the notch is supported on the 2.times.4. The safety rail then must be fastened to the 2.times.4 with lag bolts extending through countersunk lag bolt holes in the safety rail. After the lag bolts are all installed, plugs must be placed in each of the countersunk lag bolt holes. A substantial difficulty with such an installation is that trash falling between the top hand grip portion of the safety rail and the top of the 2.times.4 cannot easily be cleaned out and removed.
All of the prior art set out above suffers from the difficulty that when the support wall must be repainted or repapered, there is no simple and easy and quick way to remove the safety rail and its hardware for the purpose of refurbishing the wall.
In our Application Ser. No. 07/036,493, the Examiner cited U.S. Pat. No. 4,226,394 granted in October of 1980 to Einhorn, and British Pat. No. 387,078 to Poulden, accepted Feb. 2, 1933. Neither patent nor any possible combination of them anticipates the claims presented herein. The applicants and those in privity with them are aware of no prior art that anticipates these claims.
In our application Ser. No. 07/099,114, the Examiner cited U.S. Pat. No. 4,458,839 granted on Dec. 17, 1985 to Kaplan et al and U.S. Pat. No. 2,610,014 to Ananson. The Examiner rejected claims 1 through 4 as originally filed in that application on the patent to Kaplan et al in view of the patent to Ananson.
None of the patents cited in our previous applications relate to the novel method of installation of hardware for mounting a hand rail through the particular scribed hardware needed for such installation. None of the patents cited in these applications nor any possible combination of them anticipates the claims presented herein. The applicant and those in privity with them are aware of no prior art any closer than that discussed above and are aware of no prior art which anticipates the claims made herein.